Re: [asa] tipping point?

On Mar 4, 2007, at 1:01 PM, Janice Matchett wrote:

> At 09:35 PM 3/3/2007, Randy Isaac wrote:
>
>> He, as a non-scientist, doesn't do any models, doesn't do any
>> scientific work, doesn't tell us his methodology, doesn't know how
>> to do statistics, and comes up with a very precise number which is
>> somehow more to be trusted than that of the scientists. I better
>> go scratch my head a little more on this one. ~ Randy
>
>
>
> @ QUOTE: [Scientists] "models differ by 400% in their estimates,
> so his guess is as good as theirs.":
>

This is unconscionable lying by selective quoting. The scientists
said this in the following context:

> This is not true. The current batch of models have a mean climate
> sensitivity of about 3 C to doubled CO2 (and range between 2.5 and
> 4.0 degrees) (Paris meeting of IPCC, July 2004) , i.e an
> uncertainty of about 30%. [Note: 2006, Annan and Hargreaves
> ( http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/
> GRL_sensitivity.pdf ) lowered the uncertainty even further than TAR
> did and it had a central value of 2.9 C. This is one of the reasons
> that we have unequivocal statements concerning anthropogenic
> climate change in AR4.]
And the preceding context was snipped:

> [Crichton] also gives us his estimate, ~0.8 C for the global
> warming that will occur over the next century and claims that,
> since models differ by 400% in their estimates, his guess is as
> good as theirs.

You still need to work on your quoting. You also failed to give Gavin
Schmidt's response to Mark Bahner's comment. It pretty much makes
Randy's point:

> Response: So your point is that working on no information (i.e.
> Crichton), is better than working with the limited information that
> we have? Curious. Can improvements in information improve
> forecasts? Yes. But arguing that because we don't know everything,
> we might as well pull a number out of thin air is a little odd. -
> gavin

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Received on Sun Mar 4 17:35:39 2007